Annette

Annette (2021) is a musical drama from Leos Carax that you can watch online on iFILM. For almost its entire running time the characters don't speak — they sing, to a score and libretto written by the band Sparks, brothers Ron and Russell Mael.

Los Angeles. Henry (Adam Driver), a stand-up comic whose shows feel more like provocations than jokes, falls for opera star Ann (Marion Cotillard). They have a daughter, Annette, and that's where the strangeness begins — better discovered than spoiled. Suffice to say the girl carries a rare gift that upends both parents' lives. The third key voice in this opera belongs to Ann's accompanist, played by Simon Helberg.

Carax stayed silent for eight years after Holy Motors, then returned with the film that opened Cannes and earned him the festival's directing prize. This is not comfortable viewing: it's deliberately awkward, bitter, and operatically grand exactly where you'd expect tenderness. It's for anyone ready to take a rock opera in place of an ordinary love story. Stream Annette (2021) online on iFILM.